Pheww.. Dot.

Whew. 2 nights and 1 day left in Sydney! Between continuously alternating between meeting people and packing, I'm worn out. I didn't really realised it till yesterday, which was my first day having the day "off". I slept in. Woke up only because the movers were coming for my boxes. And then I slept for the rest of the afternoon. Phewww...

However, today was tiring! I went walking around the city which may be the last time in my whole life! Had lunch! Watched a musical! Came back! Stressed out over packing! Went out for dinner! Came back and started writing a blog post which were liberally peppered with exclamation marks (!) for no real reason! Phewww...

Fun facts:

• Farewells: I had (with different groups of people) 6 dinners and 3 lunches. (Wow, patutlah dah berisi!)
• I did not have to pay for 5 of those meals. 
• I paid for the other party for one of those meals.

• I am an idiot who underestimated the amount of clothes I own. I do not know whether I can meet the 20kg baggage weight limit. 
• Even if I can, I require a second bag just because of the volume of clothes that I want to bring back.
• I do not have a second bag.

• The weather has turned cold and I am FREEZING. Yet my housemate has confiscated the (shared) heater that we (co-)own from my room.

• Tomorrow is house cleaning day. And also running around doing some necessary stuff day. 
• I might go buy my sister's t-shirts. But it is far. And I do not have space in my bag. 
• Packing my bag is stressing me out more than my impending doom interview.

• I am not prepared AT ALL for my interview. AT ALL. 
• I have not read Sydney newspapers for 2 weeks. I have not read Malaysian newspapers for 2 months. I do not know what is going on in the world.
• I do not  know when I will prepare for my interview. There is no time.
• I do not think I will do well in my interview. I will either do OK and scrape through a recommendation.  Or I will crash and burnnnnnnn.
• I would like to do well in my interview.

• I am too tired to proof-read this entry. 
• I sometimes do not proof-read blog entries even if I am not tired.

Packing - Interview - Flight home. Don't expect to hear from me till next week.

Ngeeee~!

3 of my boxes are packed and sealed. Just one more box to go. The shipping company is coming to get them tomorrow. But!

My table is still covered with junk. 

The floor is littered with paper and plastic.

A mound of clothes is heaped onto the bed. 

There's so many of my things still lying around in the room, makes me wonder what exactly did I pack into the boxes?

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4.5 days left in Sydney! Can I freak out now?!!

I is not stupeeed

In my previous post:

Went to bed                        : 11.30pm Saturday
Fell asleep (estimated)         : 12.30pm Saturday
Woke up                             : 2:30  am Sunday

Time spent sleeping : 2 hours

I am ashamed at such a mistake but lack of sleep is obviously detrimental to one's mathematical prowess. *hides under blanket*

And no, I haven't slept yet.

4 things at 4am

1. My biological clock is seriously screwed up. I went to bed at 11.30pm last night and finally fell asleep after and hour of tossing and turning. I woke up again at 2.30am to use the bathroom and have since then failed to fall asleep again. ONE hour of sleep!

2. Have you ever gone online searching for inspirational/motivational articles in hopes that they nudge you into action? You get to the part where they talk about the excuses that people make and you read something that totally hits the nail on the head? Something so totally true about yourself that you can't help but cringing? OUCH moments.

3. My laptop is old. Currently it has issues maintaining a stable internet connection. The source of the problem is the ethernet port or some component within that vicinity. Motion seems to cause it to disconnect meaning I can't move my laptop (at all). Sometimes even typing is enough to cause a problem. Most times gentle tapping fixes it. Sometimes you've just got to hit it hard. On stubborn occasions, it'll only connect if you apply constant pressure at the right spot. But it is hard to do pretty much anything if you have one hand pressing down on the right side of your laptop. If all that fails, I usually pick up the laptop and it miraculously connects only to disconnect the moment I put down. I suppose that's its way of telling me it needs some loving.

4. Since I decided to add one more box for shipping, packing is easy peasy. I just throw in watevs. I will regret this later when 1) I have to fork the payment for shipping. 2) My family sees the junk I spent money on shipping home. They will laugh at me. And make fun of me. And question why I didn't bring back more chocolate instead.

6 days left in Sydney!

Busy Busy. I still am dragging my feet on that paper. Really, I should just get started at least. Still have people to meet. Still have things to buy (shoes for interview, t-shirts from paddy's, chocolate, Corelle dinner set). And I probably should at least send an e-mail to one of my lecturers. And house cleaning as well! Ugh.

Tonight I went out with some friends from uni. It's always after I get back home, that it sinks it. I may never see the people that I was having dinner just half an hour ago in person again. *must work harder at keeping in touch with friends* Yosh! Also, 14 dollars for mee goreng and teh tarik!  It's good for Sydney, but considering I'll be going home soon where I can get the same thing for much much  much cheaper.... Ahaha, plus real mamak stalls don't halau you out when you finish eating!

Mmmmm.... I think I'm fasting on alternate days for the whole week. Must take advantage of winter conditions! I was initially going to do it everyday for a week starting yesterday. But I felt too lethargic today, so scrapped the idea. 

One thing EVERYONE I've met this week has said to me:  

Please put up a profile picture on facebook.

I will! I will! Sooooooooooooooooooon...

Will you come?

I asked a uni friend out to lunch. We checked our schedules and realised that lunch would not work. So we settled on dinner for tomorrow night. The I figured I should really invite other friends along as well. The more the merrier yes? (And it'd be weird if its just the two of us. Lunch would have been okay, but dinner?)

Now I face a dilemma. Because I actually know only a handful of people on a personal basis. And then I know a larger group of people by association. How does one determine a guest list to an informal farewell dinner? And considering it's tomorrow night, there's really not much time. I've already had one farewell dinner thrown for me invovling another group of friends which was great; because I only had to show up at the specified time.

Plus, I do not actually know everyone's contact number. Or even who's still around in Sydney.

*fail*

Shitty things. Smiley things.

I spent about 75% of the day sleeping. Too many things. Don't know where to start. 

• Bank accounts that have no transactions for a year become inactive. I forgot. My last transaction was in January 2009. It is now June 2010. If I was back home, I'd just saunter up to an ATM machine and withdraw some cash, hence re-activating my account. But I am not :( The question is, can one transfer money into an account which is inactive? 
• A paper is (still) waiting to be written. Written by me. Unfortunately.
• I am not looking forward to interviews for several reasons. 1) I know jack shit about O&G. 2) Ditto for current national/world affairs. 3) Having to meet people.
• When I get particularly stressed (or when I eat too much salty potato chips) I get headaches. They aren't particularly painful to warrant dropping everything and spending the day recuperating in bed, but it's enough to make a person feel very sorry for herself for a larger part of the day. The headaches are worrisome. Very worrisome. High blood pressure runs in the family. But if I worry too much, I get stressed and then I'll get even more headaches and then I'll worry more and then I get ...
• Diabetes also runs in the family.
• I do not have a copy of the itinerary for my flight home. I didn't bother saving a copy because the one the travel agency sent was marked RESERVED (ie not yet CONFIRMED), and I figured that I could print it out later when everything has been finalised. I do not know if everything is finalised yet. And I am paranoid because I have prior experience where this very same travel agency changed my flight booking notified my by email the day before my flight. Considering that it was an international flight and they re-booked me into a flight that departed several hours earlier than the original one, they could have at least called. I hope that this would not happen again this time around.

Okay. Stop with the shitty list. Happy things now!

• I finished my final exam for uni! I just have to pass that exam to graduate! 
• My supervisor hinting that he gave me an excellent mark for thesis!
• Going to watch Wicked next week.
• Eating out with friends. I've had Japanese(twice), Chinese and Indo food! lol.
• Presents! Because I'm leaving the country and not knowing whether I'll be back. I've gotten: a mug, handmade bar of soap, keychain, eau de parfum and a notebook!
• Da Vinci exhibition. Makes me want to get on a plane and go see the originals now. 
• Re-scheduling of interview sessions means that I have one free day after my interviews to relax and do anything I want! 
• Nutella! Mmmmm....

Gonna go trawl facebook now. It's been too long.

Countdown

10 days in Sydney, 4 days in Melbourne.

Squashed into that is shopping, one musical, tracking down friends, packing-packing-packing, writing a paper, baking muffins, cleaning the house, preparing for a job interview, etc...

!!!

Spider!

There is a spider in my room. An 8-legged creature of DOOM.

I was fresh out of the shower, sitting at my table minding my own business. I had my glasses off so everything around me was blurry and indistinct. It was then that I noticed that there was a black blob about half a feet away from my face. A black blob that seemed to be floating mid-air.

Black blobs floating in the air are not very scary. It's when you put on your glasses and realise that it is a huge ass spider that's hanging out right next to your head that the adrenaline kicks in. I jerked away and I swear that thing came after me.

I managed to get across to the opposite site of my room, and it gave up. And leisurely made its way up its invisible thread to the ceiling. Where it proceeded to stalk its way across the room TOWARDS me.

Now, while I don't like spiders, I'm not especially scared of them.  However, that spider is creepy. It was stalking me.

I was so creeped out that I went to a housemate for moral support. Of course, when we came back the spider has shrunk to a smaller, less threatening size, taking a leisurely walk around my room. So my friendly housemate said all the right reassuring things that made me feel foolish for over-reacting. Then she said, "Don't you think it looks like it's red in colour rather than black? Do you think it might be poisonous?"
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So now the creepy stalker spider has taken up residence on the ceiling above my bed, where it sits without moving watching my every move. But that won't scare me. I will out-stare you creepy stalker spider.

Okay, let's be honest. I am scared.

Help.

Random Randomness

I've been thinking far too much. Far too much. I know really, that it's just boils down to making that one decision. Just that one decision.

But it’s a kind of auto-pilot, a life run by consensus, based on how most people think we should be living our lives.  You’re doing everything right.  Then why are you questioning it? 

almostfearless.com

But yesterday I went out! Yeay! With a whole bunch of different people :)

Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have your nonsense respected. 
Charles Lamb

And on the many days I don't get out, I am entertained by stalking my friends fb profiles.

"omg! u gonna engaging 2morrow!!!"

Some people are just really engaging ;)

Oh my!

Today I woke up and thought to myself that what I really want more than anything in this world is to move out of the family home, relocate to a foreign country and live on my own.

Cleaning! -Part 2-

So I'm still in the middle of cleaning up my room. Been too distracted to do much today :(

Last night, though, I found this gem:

Exhibit E

This green folder is probably one of my earliest purchases here in Sydney. It's positively ancient! Lol. And inside is notes from Soil Mechanics which is possibly one of the toughest subjects I've had to take.

Exhibit F

 This was wayyyy back when I used to take notes in notebooks. I've since graduated to taking notes on loose pieces of lined A4 paper. It's much handier, but there's always a chance of accidentally throwing something away.

Exhibit G

And gasp! What is this? I actually re-wrote all my notes into neater, more concise versions! Seriously, I was this hardworking? It is mind boggling! The little green tab on the top right of the piece of paper informs me that I did not finish re-writing everything and directs me to refer to the notebook (Exhibit F), should I find empty pages and incomplete diagrams. Nifty.
(Perhaps I thought that one day I would come back and finish re-copying? Or perhaps I thought that after my exams I would, *gasp*, want to read the notes again? I do not know. I do not understand. Are we even the same person?)

But even the old me could not compete with this guy.

Exhibit H

This is a photocopy of someone's work. I do not know this person. But his work is like the holy grail for everyone doing soil mechanics. This person has completed every single question in the first nine chapters of the textbook. Every. single. question. And out of the goodness of his heart has allowed his work to be photocopied and passed around.

Exhibit I

The only clue to his identity is that he does his graphs in Chinese.

And now I'm going to end abruptly for I have nothing else to say today!

Choices

Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty. What are you choosing today?

That was how a facebook friend's status read today. And it got me thinking. A while back, in an unpublished post I wrote,

I wonder if the risks that accompany freedom are worth it? Is security, no, the illusion of security worth it? How does a person decide?

Really, it's not a simple trade-off between "taking risks to be happy" or "being secure but unhappy". There's so many things to consider and so many things that could go wrong with either choice. And that's why it's hard to decide. I find myself questioning and re-evaluating decisions that I've made a month ago, even though I've told myself that it's final and whatever happens I will stick with it.

But really, am I just over-complicating matters? A small (but persistent) part of me is telling me that I'm simply taking the path of least resistance because it is the easy thing to do. And if I'm unhappy with the outcome, I can bitch and complain and shrug off all responsibility because I didn't make the damn choice.

*sigh*

I supposed this would be my first adult decision. Does it get easier with time? Would you choose unhappiness over uncertainty?

Cleaning! -Part 1-

So earlier this week, I finished the work required to produce these four babies:

Exhibit A

And the proof of my efforts was that my floor space was covered with an assortment of papers (peer-reviewed journals, print-out of websites, tutorial questions for my tute class, lecture notes from weeks before, scrap paper, etc.) all jumbled up into a big pile of mess.

Exhibit B

For a better part of the week I've been stepping over, around and on them. On a few occasions I've also "almost" spilt various types of liquids on them. So, today I've decided to sort them (and the other piles of paper I have in my room) out.

While doing that I found:

Exhibit C

You see, back during the first half of my 4-year university life, I made notes while I studied. Really neat notes in tiny handwriting. I am amazed at myself. I think I did this for most of my subjects back then. Unfortunately,somewhere along the way I became a lazy ass and stopped doing such time-consuming stuff in favour of general bumming around doing nothing.

Exhibit D

It's quite distressing to find that even though I've only gone through 5% of my accumulated notes I already have a huge pile of paper that's going to be disposed of (farthest pile on the left) and an equally huge pile to be re-used as scrap paper (not that I actually need scrap paper). On the far right are some notes that I'm giving away and a textbook that I haven't quite decided what to do with.

Okay, lunch break and then off to sort out more stuff.

Why is it that my list of things to do is longer after uni?

It feels surreal; the fact that this is my last week as an undergraduate. It didn't even end with a bang. Just a slow, slow gentle roll. It doesn't feel any different to a normal week at uni. There's no celebrations, no cheers at the end of the last class, there's not really... anything. Boooo :(


I was feeling a bit down about that, but then I ate a Mars Bar. Now I am all :D:D:D:D:D:D!

Heh.

I have only ONE month left in Sydney. Just 30 odd days before the end of a chapter of my life. And in that short space of time I have to

• Sort out 4 years worth of stuff
• Pack the stuff I want to keep
• Ship the stuff I want to keep
• Give away, recycle or throw away everything else
• Confirm flight tickets 
• Decide if I want to get gifts for anyone in Sydney
• Get gifts
• Meet up with Sydney friends to say goodbye
• Meet and thank people who have helped me at uni (supervisors, lecturers, random PhD people) - or perhaps just be lazy and send them an email?
• Get contact details of people
• Redirect university mail
• Remember to get pictures from housemate (!!)
• Inform family about flight details and ask them to pick me up
• Arrange to meet people I know in Melbourne
• Decide whether to cancel mobile early and switch to prepaid for the remaining duration
• Prepare for an interview
• Buy shoes for interview
• But gifts for everyone at home
• Firmly remind family about picking me up from the airport
• Find out how to get house bond back
  
• Vacate current apartment, get back bond
• Close my bank account
• Cancel my mobile
• Cancel my internet
• Cancel other miscellaneous subscriptions
• Call family, cry and threaten to run away if they don't show up at the airport

And that's about it. Phew, I should probably make a proper schedule but I'm tired just thinking about it. Gonna take a break and eat my Kit Kat now :D:D:D:D:D:D